On football

So in case you haven't noticed, it's autumn in America, which means football season is upon us. I decided last year that I was going to be a die-hard Redskins fan, and I'm super-psyched that they won yesterday but I can't help feeling that I'm a failure as a die-hard fan, since I can only name a handful of players on the team.

You might have guessed about me that I'm not really into sports. Most of them take place outdoors and involve being active, so there's two strikes against it to start. But football? I like football, mostly, I guess. I don't live near enough to any major sports team to have to sit outdoors in crappy weather in uncomfortable seats, which means that most of my football is observed from a living room. This suits me just fine. And usually, football is an excuse to eat shitty food and yell a lot about things that don't matter in the long run, which is also fun.

Andy is a Dolphins fan. His dad is a Bills fan, and the Bills and Dolphins have some sort of rivalry thing, so it was a pretty natural move for little-kid-Andy to pick the team that his dad hated (if you're new here, read that post for some insight there). He also was a fan of Dan Marino, who played for the Dolphins, which fact I totally already knew, but only because of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Andy will happily watch football, but is okay with the fact that not having cable means he misses a lot of games. He also doesn't sulk all week (or at all) when his team loses, which makes me love him even more, because that shit is childish.

So. How the hell did I become a Redskins fan? Well, I picked the team with the most racist name, and I don't like the Braves' colors. No, just kidding. (The Braves are a baseball team, anyway. I looked it up to be sure.) No, the real reason is this: my mom grew up in northern Virginia. Her dad, my grandpa, loved his adopted region enough to become a big fan of the 'Skins, and he started instilling this love in his grandkids when we were still quite young. I remember learning the Redskins Fight Song when I was a toddler, no joke. And I don't really care enough about football to have a loyalty to any team, but I decided I wanted to learn more about the sport. There's too much to try to learn it all, so I decided to pick one team. And as my grandpa died a few years ago and I miss hearing him sing that song, I picked the 'Skins. As far as I can tell from people's responses, "they were my grandpa's team" is as reasonable reason as any other.

Last year by the end of the season I had a decent grasp on major players on the team, but it seems I have lost all of that knowledge in the meantime. So we're going to a bar tonight to watch the Dolphins play, and I'm going to bring a printout of this year's roster and some index cards to make myself some Redskins flash cards. Because I am a giant nerd, and also I want to represent.

How do you feel about football? Who's your team?